Tag Archives: Retina display

The MacBook Pro is less than a week old (in the public’s view) and the devices are already being sacrificed in the name of curiosity.

The folks at iFixit took apart MacBook Pro’s 2880 x 1800 Retina display panel, and what they discovered is making them rethink LCD construction. It’s incredible what Apple engineers have done to make that kind of resolution work in a laptop screen that's thinner than anything seen in its geneology.

The unibody aluminum casing is the frame for the display. The LCD is its own front glass. Even the wireless antennas are threaded through the hinges to maximize use of even the tiniest of spaces.

Guard the Retina display with your life. This kind of parts layout means you can probably forget about repairs. Even the masters of the teardown at iFixit cracked the display’s glass during their dissection.

If you’re willing to forgive the disposability problem, the MacBook Pro’s Retina display is a high-resolution engineering marvel. Just don’t drop it.

During the keynote at the WWDC Apple showed off the next-gen MacBook Pro with Retina display and the updates for others in the Pro family. Because we know you won’t want to wait till the end for this, prices for the MacBook Pro start at $2199. It’s available immediately. Prices for the other models follow at the end.

The most impressive thing about the new MacBook Pro is the brand new high-density display. The display has four times the number of pixels as the previous model at 220 pixels-per-inch or 5,184,000 pixels. It’s 15.4 inches across, but its pixel density is 2880 by 1800.

If that’s not enough for you, here is a summary of the features sported by the new MacBook Pro:

A 178-degree wide viewing angle that has 75 percent less reflection and 29 percent higher contrast than the previous generation

A 2.3GHz quad-core i7 processor with 8GB of RAM, a GeForce Gt 650M with 1GB of VRAM, 256GB of flash storage, and up to 16GB of 1600MHz RAM

Up to seven hours of battery life and 30 days of standby. (The battery takes up most of the interior.)

Built around flash storage, users can configure their models at up to 768GB of internal flash storage

The fastest graphics on a Mac laptop—Nvidia GeForce GT 650M

802.11n Wi-Fi

Bluetooth 4.0.

A FaceTime HD camera

Dual mics using beam-forming technology

An SD card, HDMI out, USB3/USB2 ports on either side, two Thunderbolt ports, and a headphone port

Fan blades asymmetrically spaced so that the fan noise is not a uniform sound, but more dispersed

A new, thinner MagSafe 2 power port

Glass Multi-Touch trackpad

A backlit keyboard

At 4.46 pounds, the new Pro is heavier than an Air, but comparable to the 13-inch MacBook Pros. Like the new Air, it has no optical drive. Closed, it’s about as thick as the base of the old MacBook Pro but about as thin as an Air, at 0.71 inches.

Apple has made their MacBook Pro as environmentally friendly as an electronic device can get with an Energy Star 5.2 rating. It’s arsenic-free, BFR-free and PVC-free. It’s also highly recyclable, and has mercury-free glass.

New specs for the rest of the MacBook Pro family :

Along with the MacBook Pro with Retina display, Apple revealed other news on updates to the current MacBook Pro line.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro has a 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of memory and 500GB hard drive and starts at $1,199. With a 2.9 GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of memory, and a 750GB hard drive its prices start at $1,499.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro has a 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 4GB of memory, Intel HD Graphics 4000, Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics, and a 500GB hard drive starting at $1,799. With a 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of memory, Intel HD Graphics 4000, Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics, and a 750GB hard drive it starts at $2,199. Faster quad-core processors up to 2.7GHz, additional hard drive capacity up to 1TB, up to 8GB of memory, and solid state storage up to 512GB are available options.